Donald Trump, Birther

What’s the story behind Donald Trump’s recent flirtation with the birther movement?

Trump last made news with a surprise CPAC speech in February revealing his presidential aspirations, during which he incurred the wrath of the Paul fans in attendance by remarking that Ron Paul “has zero chance of getting elected” — while, of course, Donald Trump, on the other hand, would be a very serious and electable candidate. Perhaps looking to bolster his credibility even further, Trump decided to come out of the birther closet during a recent interview with Good Morning America, in which he remarked:

Everybody that gives any hint of being a birther — maybe — they label them as an idiot… the reason I have a little doubt — just a little … he grew up and nobody knew him. … nobody knows who he is until later in his life. The whole thing is very strange.

Careful observers of the aforementioned CPAC speech might have noted that even then, Trump was hinting at the topic of Obama’s mysterious origins:

Our current President came out of nowhere. Came out of nowhere. In fact, I’ll go a step further. The people that went to school with him never saw him; they don’t know who he is. Crazy.

So why bring this up? If Trump is actually running for president, he’s doing it because polling indicates that at least 27 percent of Republicans have doubts about Obama’s origins. There are probably going to be more Republicans primary voters who have these doubts than think abortion should be illegal. So being a Reform Birther is saying you’re in solidarity with state legislators who are demanding birth certificates from the next presidential candidates.

To add to Weigel’s explanation, Trump’s birther move seems like a tone-deaf variation on Newt Gingrich’s strategy of building momentum by latching onto a fringy but highly motivated segment of the grassroots — in Gingrich’s case, the anti-Sharia law folks. Trump’s birther embrace seems like a more iffy strategy to me, but if it doesn’t work, he could always try moon-landing denial.

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39 Responses to Donald Trump, Birther

Do we really need anti-birther snark from The American Conservative? Don’t we get enough point and snicker snark from the likes of Weigel and the hacks in the MSM?

Trump definitely needs to tread carefully here. If he is going to go here he should definitely be aware that the “birther” center of gravity has moved away from the dogmatic assertion that Obama was born in Kenya (something that never made logistical or any other kind of sense to me, especially since it seems likely that Obama’s mother’s marriage to BO Senior was pretty much a sham anyway), to the more generic “Something is amiss here” and/or “He’s hiding something.”

The “Something is amiss here” and “He’s hiding something” sentiment is pervasive, and Trump would be wise to capitalize on it as long as he does so very carefully. (Trump’s “He appeared out of nowhere” tack, while it partially captures the “something is amiss here” vibe, is not careful IMO.)

Given all the controversy, it is my position that people are entirely justified in wanting to see Obama’s long form birth certificate, and there is absolutely no good reason why he shouldn’t authorize its release. This is the reflexive, naturally curious, intuitive position, and to be deliberately incurious about it requires a conscious act of suppression.

One problem with the anti-birther thought policing (whether in the form or snark or hysteria) represented by this post is that it stifles legitimate debate. There are several legitimate questions that can’t get asked and/or won’t be answered because they fall under some vague birther umbrella and because of the thought policers only the bravest (or stupidest) risk that taint and the MSM can get away with ignoring the issues as long as they can simply dismiss it all as birther conspiracy theories.

For example, where is The American Conservative and the mainstream conservative media (not to mention the MSM) on the allegation that Obama’s first book, Dreams from my Father, was ghostwritten potentially by Bill Ayers? And since the Constitution doesn’t specify how the “natural born” clause is supposed to be enforced (they didn’t seem to foresee that it would ever be an issue), what could possibly be wrong with a state requiring a birth certificate to place someone on the ballot? And why hasn’t TAC published a piece by an originalist constitutional scholar looking into what exactly the Founders had in mind when they chose the words “natural born?” Did they intend to exclude those not born with two native parents? This is an interesting and debatable question, is it not?

So please spare me the anti-birther snark Mr. Nugent. (Moon-landing denial? Really? TAC should be better than that.) This issue needs a lot less snark and a lot more testicles. And if Donald Trump is willing to fall on his sword to get the issue in play, then more power to him.

We at TAC certainly don’t believe in suppressing debate. My main intended point was that Trump’s bringing the issue up seems like a strange and misguided strategy, especially given his earlier statement about Ron Paul’s unelectability. My snark may have been over the top. I recognize now that the comparison to moon-landing denial was unfair.

(…and yes: I appreciate Trump stumped up the $38 for the “real-er” cert later)

People are entitled to be curious. And they are also entitled to demand laws that demand Presidential candidates release their long-form birth certs to the public. But other people are entitled to ask – in the absence of a law even requiring its public broadcast – what’s wrong with the short-form cert that’s already been released, since it’s a state issued document with the necessary and relevant information – it says he was born within the US?

And I’ll tell you an excellent reason not to release the “long-form” version: because it fires up all the right people who vocally and obnoxiously swing from one conspiratorial centre of gravity to the next, much like global warming people have never met a weather event that disproved their our pet passion. Great fodder for the Democrats to make Republicans look like their lingering sense of unease is because they woke up one morning and were shocked that their President was black.

polling indicates that at least 27 percent of Republicans have doubts about Obama’s origins. There are probably going to be more Republicans primary voters who have these doubts than think abortion should be illegal

Wiegel is either confusing “illegal” with “legal,” as I sometimes do when I’m rushed, or else he’s shockingly misinformed about the GOP primary voting base.

As for the birth certificate, I think Obama probably has it in a desk drawer somewhere, where it will stay until birtherism starts to damage him more than it is damaging the GOP. I could be wrong. It could be lost, nonexistent, or fraudulent, but that would be the most surprising twist of all.

It’s becoming more and more obvious that the reason that the original long form birth certificate isn’t released isn’t because the birthers wouldn’t believe it anyway, but instead because it doesn’t exist and never did.

It’s very likely that the source documentation on which the certificate of live birth was created is at most a note of some bureaucrat who took a phone call. The newspaper articles and the COLB all could have been triggered by that one phone call from anywhere in the world, perhaps from the grandparents in Hawaii or from the mom in Kenya.

Everyone saying that this has been checked and verified misses the point. Who checked it? Who verified it? Are they trustworthy?

What was checked? What was verified? What was the information on it?

Everyone commenting on this issue doesn’t know what was checked or what was verified or what information was on it. The only people who know the answers to those questions are running deep and silent right now.

This is no way to run a democracy, especially a transparent one.

——————————————————————————————-

My question to all of the after-birthers is:

Where do we stand when it turns out there is no original long form birth certificate?

Obama was born outside the continental United States. Donald Trump is a genius, of course, and former bankrupt with a son-in-law about to go bankrupt. Neither man should be President in 2013. Both have unchallenged intellects, demand too much attention and annoy most sensible people. If the birth certificate issue embarrasses both men, then I’m all for Trump wallowing about in it.Relax and laugh.

Another thing nobody apparently knows is whether or not Obama’s mom was ever in Kenya. If someone knows that information please post it.

Was she ever in Kenya?

If so, when?

Her passport information for that time period has conveniently been destroyed, and that was done against government policy.

There is too much information still unknown for any definitive conclusion to be reached one way or the other.

But there is enough information to know that there is a huge cover-up going on and the American population is being denied both information that exists as well as confirmation that the documentation we have been assured exists in fact doesn’t.

This issue has legs because the more people learn about the details, the more naturally curious they become about what’s being hidden and why.

The only people satisfied right now are those who demand to remain blissfully ignorant, as if ignorance was warm excrement filled mud and they are pigs who are content to wallow in it. Frankly, it’s pathetic and there is no way our republic will survive with this level of willful, in fact belligerent ignorance.

The people screaming against the birthers may as well be on their two minutes’ hate and afterwords chanting, “Ignorance is Strength” over and over again to keep from learning anything they assume will be too dangerous to know.

I don’t particularly support Donald Trump but if all he promised to do as President was to get to the bottom of the birther conspiracy once and for all and make all the information about it public, he would have my everlasting gratitude and unwavering support.

Why?

The heart of our democracy has been stabbed straight through. We’re dying as a country if this is allowed to pass, bleeding out quickly and there is no help for it without heroic measures. We need a doctor to cut open the chest cavity, expose that heart and massage it back to life. Right now our government has no credibility. It is diseased through and through, corrupt to the core. If our Constitution has been violated at this level and an impostor has illegally usurped the Presidency, we need to know.

If Donald Trump is the new President, his oath is to defend the Constitution. A breach of it at this level cannot be allowed to stand.

The way I see this being played out is that he immediately flies out to Hawaii to the Department of Health and, camera crews and reporters from every major news organization in tow, is told that those records cannot be released. His response to the bureaucrat who tells him that is predictable. “YOU’RE FIRED!”

With the FBI and the media and perhaps even some members of the Supreme Court alongside, the offices are stormed and all the records scoured. Everyone is held and questioned, searched thoroughly and questioned again. The result?

Mr. Nugent, thanks for the gracious reply, and I should have toned it down a bit myself. I just get really worked up when I see snark in lieu of argument (Weigel is the master of it) because it is so frequently a weapon of the mainstream against the “fringe” so when the “borderline fringe” does it it comes off as an attempt to ingratiate themselves with the mainstream.

“My main intended point was that Trump’s bringing the issue up seems like a strange and misguided strategy”

I don’t think it is strategy, and if it is it is poorly thought out. Trump shoots from the hip and says what he thinks, a trait that is both admirable and cringe inducing at the same time. I suspect Trump genuinely harbors some doubts about the Obama narrative. The “came out of nowhere” take has a Manchurian Candidate feel about it that is needlessly conspiratorial and inchoate. There would be better ways to hint at the “I think Obama is hiding something” message if this were a deliberate strategy.

“But other people are entitled to ask – in the absence of a law even requiring its public broadcast – what’s wrong with the short-form cert that’s already been released, since it’s a state issued document with the necessary and relevant information – it says he was born within the US?”

Many people question the authenticity of the short form BC he posted on the web. But my contention remains, there is absolutely no good reason he shouldn’t just release the long form to satisfy the skeptics. In fact, I think it speaks poorly of him that he isn’t fighting mad to do so. I keep trying to put myself in his position. If I was in the position he is in, I would DEMAND that my long form be released and then I would proceed to shove it up Philip Berg’s, Orly Taitz’s, Alan Keyes’, etc. a**es. It would take an army to keep me from marching into the Hawaii Dept of Health and demanding they give me the long form. I would canoe to Hawaii if I had to, and then I would rub the thing in my critics’ faces with much glee. That his refusal to release the long form is a deliberate attempt to distract and discredit his opponents strikes me as a bit of a conspiratorial explanation itself. At the least it is an explanation for behavior that differs from the most obvious and natural course of action, to just release the thing. This would make Obama a petty game player.

I’d bet it was close to 27% ( maybe more) of Dem primary voters in ’04 at the height of the “Bush lied, our kids died” craze that believed dopey GWB somehow had preknowledge or was involved in the 9/11 attacks. Is this conspiracy belief about O’s birthplace any crazier? Obviously yes, to annoying people like Weigel, Chris Matthews, etc. I’ll believe he was born in Hawaii for time being, but I’d be singularly unsurprised by some smoking gun that showed he wasn’t. Why would it be surprising when the entire MSM was his high school pom pom cheerleader squad throughout the whole campaign? Additionally, does anyone believe the poll numbers of people who say he’s Muslim? I think it’s obvious: people just love telling pollsters they think he might be Muslim, because, hey, it’s fun watching Matthews and Howard Fineman and Eugene Robinson and the whole gang shriek and spittlespit onto the tv cameras every night about how alarming it all is. I mean I’d certainly tell a pollster I’m sure he must be Muslim. Is there a more irrelevant question that could be asked, however, about our president? I mean doesn’t everybody realize that he’s like every other modern-educated post McGovern Dem, probably an atheist, at least an agnostic who’s pretending to be a Christian, because, well, that’s what you do when you run for prez? Certainly his dreamyeyed MSM observers seem to think this; why else do they write these pieces up as if they were defense briefs, constantly telling us in AP “news” pieces how his CHRISTIAN faith sustains him, his CHRISTIAN faith is important to him, etc, whereas back in crazy Bush’s years (and in Reagan’s) it was always all so much more alarming, the president reportedly PRAYS (!!) for guidance, the prez relies on a “higher power”, etc. When the cool Dem prez’s “faith” is always nothing to worry about, I just assume that’s because the lefty journo writing the thing has been to the source or close to the source and is confident that it’s all for show and for the flyover rubes.

Several years ago, out of curiosity, I sent away for my parents’ birth certificates. Both would now be 104 if they were living. Pennsylvania sent me my mother’s official birth certificate in less than a week. It showed her full name, place and date of birth and the official seal. New York City, where my father was born, refused to send me his official birth certificate. Instead, they sent me a copy (even better) of his “birth record.” It contained the following information: full name, date and time of birth, address of place of birth, race, gender, midwife’s name and registration number, names and ages of brothers and sisters and parents’ names, ages, occupations and countries of origin. It was signed by the midwife.

This whole birther business started when one of Obama’s paternal aunts claimed that he was born in Kenya. It gathered momentum when a Philadelphia lawyer, Philip J. Berg, filed a lawsuit in federal court (Berg vs Obama) claiming that he was born in Mombasa, Kenya and therefore ineligible to run for president. Since then, a whole slew of similar lawsuits and actions have been filed.

The MSM has made belief in Obama’s Hawaiian birth a litmus test for sanity. I must admit to being a bit skeptical of same, although I really don’t care where he was born. He can clear things up by allowing the release of his long-form birth record.

Problem with Birth Certificates of political candidates is people did not talk about Birth Certificates when Bushes were running for the highest office, but are talking when President Baraq Hussein is running for re-election.

Since 99% *Black-Americans voted and will vote for President Baraq Hussein, they will say asking “Birth Certificate” of President Baraq Hussein is racially motivated.

Because, in America, if you say anything unfavorable, whether legitimate or not, about a Black-American candidate, you are automatically categorized as **racist.

________________________________________________
*I used to the words “Black-American” instead of “African American”, because White people also live in African continent and, as a result, “African American” is an incorrect term. The term “African American” could mean a White individual too.

Obama has no benefit in releasing any additional birth information. What has been released to date satisfies most people and the press that he was born in the US. The vast majority of “birthers” wouldn’t vote for him if he released a videotape of his mother giving birth on the steps of the Lincoln memorial anyway. He benefits from the “birther” movement at this point as it marginalizes his detractors as conspiracy kooks, regardless of any merit to their arguments. If you want to convince people on the fence that he is a bad president, there is a ton of factual information at your fingertips. Trying to convince those people that he is not eligible to be president (like that will magically erase the last few years) is counterproductive.

Jeebus H. Christo. When Karl Rove, yes, THAT Karl Rove, is making a point of telling the Birthers that they need to shut the hell up because they’re making the Republican Party look stupid with this Birther crap, you really have to take a step back and marvel at the prospect of what the GOP Primary debates are going to be like.

But please, carry on. I really want to see how the MSM tries to ‘carry the message’ for the GOP candidates when they have to answer questions from their supporters about what they’re going to to expose the whole insidious conspiracy.

There isn’t enough popcorn in the world for how fun that’s going to be.

Refuse to show the long form live birth certificate and it continues to be an issue.

And, if one of several states passes a law requiring a long form birth certificate to get on the ballot, so that Obama is not on the ballot, and he still doesn’t provide a long form live birth certificate, then Obama will be in real trouble both politically and constitutionally.

@ Tony J “When Karl Rove, yes, THAT Karl Rove, is making a point of telling the Birthers that they need to shut the hell up because they’re making the Republican Party look stupid with this Birther crap,”

Karl Rove is a moderate Establishment shill, what do you expect him to say?

@StoN

“Obama has no benefit in releasing any additional birth information.”

Well, there is the benefit of rubbing it in his skeptics’ faces, as I said above. When pressed about the long form, the default response should be to releases it. There is really no good reason not to. So if he has nothing to hide and is holding back just to make the other side look bad, then he is a petty game player. Is that supposed to be admirable?

“What has been released to date satisfies most people and the press that he was born in the US.”

The issue has moved beyond whether or not he was born in the US for most people curious to see the long form BC. To assert that the issue is whether he was born in the US means you either haven’t been keeping up with the debate (no crime in that) or that you are erecting straw men. The issue is whether the long form contains information he is trying to hide, most explosively if it contains info that doesn’t sync with the short form and would hence mean that the short form he presented is fraudulent.

“Just release the long form” is, I contend, an unassailable position. Just fill out the request and pay the fee and release the long form and the issue goes away for the vast majority of people. If the money is an issue and Obama can’t come up with the fee, I’ll pay it for him, generous guy that I am. There, no barriers. Someone please point out to me the flaw in that position.

The only party that is desperate are the Republicans, but its to “kill the middle class”, they will lose!

Let me just say that Trump may just be “rattling the Birthers cages”, he can run or he may have grown accustomed to media attention this non-issue would create.

The current Republicans only know how to a) Start Wars not Win them (talk about no exit strategy), b) Fire more middle class worker, c) Deny middle class worker healthcare, d) Break unions. e) Take chice away from women, f) Act like they are not responsible for the financial collapse and the deficit, yup thats about it.

Our current President travelled under a USA passport long before he was elected President, but I guess the quacky BIRTHERS, must believe that the USCIS – United States Passport was in on the lie, please, grow up, you are wrong!

The Birthers just HATE and can’t debate!
Have any of the quacky BIRTHERS presented any credible proof that will standup in court? Answer: No
Have any of the quacky BIRTHERS won any Court Cases? Answer: No
They are just mainly backward, uneducated, white people who HATE our half black President.

The majority of the voting public ask “where the proof”, show some proof BIRTHERS or the voting majority will continue to see you as dumb, stupid or racist, maybe all three. Can you blame them?

Still, I really hope one of these retreads and blowhards runs for president, not because they have a chance of winning but because I like to see the train wreck that they will cause.

I have pointed out repeatedly in another forum that not one person (conspicuously by his own admission including Red Phillips) is going to vote for or against Obama on the basis of any kind of birth certificate, not if it’s long enough to stretch to the moon and back. I also predicted that at least one candidate in the Republican primaries would appeal to the birthers to enhance his anti-Obama street cred and comes now Donald Trump to spectacularly prove me right on that. With his money and notortiety, Trump has always had some potential to out-do even Ross Perot and destroy the Republican party completely and he now has the needed wedge issue to either split the party and run on an independent birther ticket or win the nomination and alienate in the process all those anti-plutocrat voters who are more concerned with long wars and long form mortgages. But hey, this is not bad news. The continued existence of the Republican party is the biggest obstacle to any genuine empire-ending reform.

If I was Obama, I would just let the birthers keep talking. It’s a very small number of people, they are never going to vote for him anyway, and every time one of them says something, Obama picks up a few more undecideds in 2012. I’m sure Obama and Plouffe laugh about this over drinks in the evening.

So just keep it up, birthers. Btw, what about the birth announcement in the Honolulu newspaper? Was that an ingenious trick or what?

Kirt, nice strawman (which I have already addressed) you erected so you could knock it down. This has nothing to do with who I or other “birthers” will vote for. There isn’t a chance in Hell I will vote for the Dem nominee, and very little chance I will vote for the GOP nominee unless it is Ron Paul. I will almost certainly vote for the Constitution Party nominee as I have in the past several elections. SO WHAT! This is about whether the President of the United States presented a short form BC that was fraudulent. (In my opinion it is not about Constitutional eligibility because I don’t doubt he was born in the US. It is about fitness for duty.) This in my mind is not about how swing voters will vote. It is about forcing Obama from office. If, for example, his long form BC leaked and it contained information that was contrary to what was on his published short form or was otherwise explosive, there would be a political and media feeding frenzy unprecedented in history. It would make Monica Lewinsky look like a walk in the park. If you think that potential document fraud is irrelevant then there is nothing else I can say to you. You just keep up your above it all pose if it makes you feel better.

“I also predicted that at least one candidate in the Republican primaries would appeal to the birthers to enhance his anti-Obama street cred and comes now Donald Trump to spectacularly prove me right on that.”

And what makes you so sure that clown Trump will run in any Republican primary? It’s amazing that the MSM treats this jerk as a serious political candidate when he has never run for any political office in his life. I seriously doubt that that will change next year.

I had a very different experience from Art R. I recently needed my birth certificate (Massachusetts) for a passport and received a bare-bones document with the date of birth, my parents’ names, and not much else. No race, no name of attending physician, not even the name of the hospital. It was not the original document written in 1980, since it was signed and stamped by the current city clerk, not the one in office then. In other words, it was basically equivalent to the document Obama has already released. I am sure my real original long-form certificate must be in a vault somewhere, but it was not even made clear to me how I could obtain it if I wanted to.

Trump, indeed, likely will not run for president, but Trump is driving the issue, where lesser political mortals seemingly fear to tread.

In a Nation where over 50% of likely voters have questions about Obama’s birth circumstances & eligibility, this issue won’t go away.

Again, should one or more states pass laws requiring a long form live birth certificate, and Obama can’t or won’t provide such document, and, thus, is not on one or more states’ ballot, Obama is going to have political problems and constitutional problems.

And all the whistling pass the graveyard, move along, nothing to see here spin is going to save Obama.

“Some analysts think Trump is espousing birtherism because it might help him stand out in a crowded GOP primary field. They point to a recent Public Policy Polling survey which showed that 51 percent of likely Republican voters believe Obama was not born in the US.

But the sample used for the survey was very small for a national survey, others point out. Bigger national polls have produced other results. A CNN/Opinion Research survey released last August found that 57 percent of Republicans say Obama was definitely or probably born in the US.”

“Btw, what about the birth announcement in the Honolulu newspaper? Was that an ingenious trick or what?”

Ben, as I said, the debate has moved away from the assertion that Obama was born in Kenya and moved to the suspicion that he is hiding something. Please try to keep up. IMO, the birth announcements are pretty suggestive that BO was born in Hawaii. Although, since they were likely based on records from the Dept. of Health, it is still possible that Obama’s long form BC is not the delivered by a doctor in a hospital type but the “attested to” type that was allowed in Hawaii at the time. The issue is that there might be something on the long form that Obama is trying to hide and/or that would contradict the short form he released.

(BTW, I don’t think the questions as asked in the polls above accurately reflect the state of things. People expressing concerns about where Obama was born is for many I think a way of expressing some doubts about the whole Obama narrative. I don’t have much doubt that he was born in Hawaii, but I would hate to answer the question that way for fear of endorsing the Obama narrative in toto. So I would probably answer not sure as a way of expressing doubts about the larger narrative.)

There’s 2 questions: where was he born, and why won’t he release his actual birth certificate?

You can go on and on with regards to the first one–how nutty it is to think he was born in Kenya or not in Hawaii or whatever–and it won’t answer the second one. There are a lot of people who are sure the answer to question one is “Hawaii” but still want to know what’s up with question two.

Every answer to question two at this point boils down to “Screw you racist birthers.” Why is he spending so much money fighting its release in various suits? why did Abercrombie try to find it and fail? why does the media have to do so much covering for him (making up which hospital it supposedly was, misrepresenting the value of the newspaper announcements) instead of trying to find out themselves? It’s all just really, really weird and no amount of answering question one is going to change that. You have to answer question two and “he’s just trying to make the racist fringe look crazy” isn’t going to cut it forever.

OK, so birtherism is now away of avoiding endorsing the Obama narrative in toto, of expressing skepticism that he has been one hundred percent truthful about each and every aspect of his past life. This gets more ridiculous as it goes along. Obama’s a politician – he lies for a living. On this basis we need birtherism for every politician.

–noun Rhetoric.
1. obvious and intentional exaggeration.
2. an extravagant statement or figure of speech not intended to be taken literally, as “to wait an eternity.”

Red Phillips,

I never said anything about admirable traits. I’m talking about reality. You’re playing checkers while Obama plays chess. Obama is going to select the course of action that is most beneficial to him. Rubbing it in the face of his critics may sound fun, but it’s not in his best interest. He knows his critics will just find the next thing to move on to and continue to attack him regardless. So, as I mentioned before, he gains politically from letting the birthers paint themselves as conspiracy nuts. It’s politics 101, not something Obama invented.

Kirt, I am at a loss to figure out what your issue really is. To prove you are more cynical than thou? Of course politicians lie, but this is potentially orders of magnitude beyond concealing a DUI arrest or whatever.

I don’t get the fearful avoid birther taint at all cost vibe from you, so why do you even care? What skin is it off your nose if a lot of people are curious and skeptical about the Obama narrative and suspect there may be some bombshell he is attempting to cover up? Why can’t you just go off in some corner somewhere and congratulate yourself on your impeccable cynicism and let the unconvinced proceed with their enquiry? And for the record, questioning the Obama narrative in toto is much less “ridiculous” (not more) than dogmatically asserting he was born in Kenya.

I have never denied that your explanation is one possibility. The three possibilities that I see for why he won’t release his long form are 1.) it doesn’t exist (unlikely IMO) 2.) there is something on it he doesn’t want us to see and/or contradicts the short form he released or 3.) he is playing political games.

#3 is entirely plausible. It may well be the explanation, but it can no more dogmatically be asserted that that is the explanation than it can be dogmatically asserted that he has something to hide. He may have something to hide. He may not. We don’t know. He may be playing political games. He may not. Again, we don’t know.

If conspiracy theorist are guilty of having a low threshold for latching on to the conspiratorial explantion and resisting the conventional explanation, and they are, then conspiracy phobics are guilty of having a low threshold for accepting the conventional explanation and resisting the conspiratorial. People who really really believe #3 with anything near certainty do so because that is what they want to believe. They are actively screening out another plausible explanation. Likewise, people who really really believe #2 with anything near certainty do so because they want to believe that. They are actively screening out another plausible explanation. The objective, non-emotionally invested opinion is that we don’t know which explanation is correct. One may lean one way. Another may lean another. But there is no basis for certainty.

Personally my hunch is that he is hiding something, but I am nowhere near certain, and I would never assert that he is hiding something dogmatically. Your hunch is that he is playing political games, but, if you are honest, you can not say you know that with certainty.

So this takes us back to the point. He is our President. We should not have to guess or speculate about these things. He should release the long form and put this to rest. The contention that Obama “should” release his long form BC ought to be noncontroversial. Of course he “should” release his long form. To contend otherwise is to excuse bad behavior on his part.

I never made a claim as to what the specific reason is for not releasing it. What I am telling is that you are never going to see the long form regardless of what is on it. If it’s uninteresting, it’s good politics to not release it. If it contains something controversial, of course he’s not going to release it. I’m not taking a side, so please don’t put words in my mouth. I’m just pointing out the reality that it’s not in his best political interest to release it, regardless of what it contains.

After thinking about this issue recently, I’ve argued at DougGeivett.com that questions about Obama’s birthplace may plague him more in the next election season than it did during the 2008 election. Donald Trump, who is rumored as of today to have decided to run for the presidency, could press the issue so that Obama is compelled to respond.

I’ve also argued that Obama would be wise to respond. As president, it would be admirable for him to act in the interests of seeking national unity by providing what the birthers have asked for. It would also go far in deflating the steam that has built up among those who seriously believe that he was not born in the United States. And Obama needs to find a venue for doing this that looks less like a capitulation to demands and more like the act of a statesman. That means offering the long form version of his birth certificate sooner rather than later.

I find Trump’s repeated affairs and marriages to women of the former Soviet block HIGHLY suspicious.
Does Trump have incontrovertible proof that he is not a KGB double agent?
Do we really want to put our country in the hands of a man who loves Communism so much he marries into it, and may be directly reporting to Putin!
I think not!